Previews

Going Wireless with Guitar Hero II

The guitar hero campaign you'll play to unlock these tracks starts you off in a local gym, competing in a Battle of the Bands. Do well there on the first songs in your set list, and the crowd will request an encore, unlocking the final track in that set's tier. You'll move your way up from venue to venue, playing bigger stages and captivating audiences with your playing. The camera work seems much improved over the first Guitar Hero, and it even sways in time with the music when you've got the audience enthralled by your ballads.

But pretty visuals and fancy particle effects aren't what attracted audiences to Guitar Hero. It was the gameplay, and the rock, and this game is bringing more of both than you can handle. Hammer-ons and pull-offs were made much easier to perform this time around, allowing skilled players to tackle more challenging songs than ever before. The way it works now, it's really easy to just tack on a note immediately after hitting an adjacent fret without having to hit the strum bar. While this doesn't work unless the second note comes immediately after the first, with practice, it makes it quite possible to hit those rapid progressions without missing a beat.

The biggest improvement in the game may be the excellent integration of the new multiplayer features. We've discussed how the game allows players to cooperatively or competitively play the same song with different difficulty settings, but after getting our hands on it, it's safe to say that this functionality was absolutely nailed. If two players play together, they share a single combo multiplier and star power. While this may seem to hinder the better player, they also get faster multipliers, since you get through two sets of notes in the same span as a single player would see only one. So if you're a great player that tackles songs on expert, you can bring along someone confident on the easy or medium settings, and really see that score shoot through the roof. You'll just have to be able to deal with yelling out, "Star power, dude!" as frequently as we have. You'll also need to find out a good way to settle who gets to play lead and who plays bass. Rock, paper, scissors works, as does an impromptu no-holds-barred fight.

We have to save something for our review, which will be coming to GameSpy when Guitar Hero II hits stores on November 7. We'll be sure to let you know how the new SG Controller works, how the new songs stack up to the originals, and a whole lot more. Stay tuned!